


blasphemy's just a taste of freedom

by rievu



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, but he finds that the line between those two concepts is exceptionally thin indeed, in which teague martin has a dilemma over freedom and blasphemy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 18:46:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17208902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rievu/pseuds/rievu
Summary: The rebels of Morley were always a motley group: built out of stronger stuff like the ores and tides of Morley itself and thirsty for freedom from the iron grip of the Empire. Teague Martin is no exception to that and finds himself stationed in Dunwall as one of the assassins to kill the next emperor after Empress Olaskir. However, he finds his own ideals of freedom to be tested again and again as he sinks deeper into the mire of Dunwall. He turns to a whale god in the end and realizes that in the end, blasphemy's just a taste of freedom.// a character study of teague martin and his past as well as the influence of the outsider's touch





	blasphemy's just a taste of freedom

**Author's Note:**

> just a heads-up: there are some allusions to sex towards the end, but there are no explicit descriptions of it. also, this is more of an AU than anything else because i am thoroughly shredding the canon timeline to pieces for the sake of this hahaha

The taste of alcohol burns down Teague Martin’s throat, but it does nothing against the burn in his arm. Even though Sean dug out the bullet with his blade and cauterized it with alcohol and flame, Teague can still feel the throbbing, almost phantom, pain lancing through his arm. The scent of the sewers doesn’t do much to help either, and he doesn’t understand how Dunwall stood so long against enemies and assassins when the labyrinth of sewers existed just below the surface of the cobblestones. They even collapsed regularly into sinkholes, and you could travel across the entirety of Dunwall purely through the tunnels. Of course, it wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but most things in life never were.

Teague’s in his twenties, and instead of being a shoemaker with his deft hands or a poet with his defter tongue, he finds himself in the Liberation Army of Morley. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. There were opportunities to be had, and in the darkest corners of Teague’s mind, a bright flame of rebellion sparked deep and bold. He never would have expected _this_ assignment though. He, along with a group of others, was to infiltrate the city of Dunwall and wait for an opportunity to assassinate the new emperor. Euhorn Kaldwin was his name, and he was the start of a new dynasty after the last group sent to Dunwall murdered Empress Larisa Olaskir.

A wry smirk curls its way across Teague’s lips despite the pain, and he licks the traces of alcohol off his lips. He read through the previous report; it was a perfectly executed assassination. Now, he and others are stuck here in this miserable, grey excuse of a country until he slashes his blade across the veins in Kaldwin’s throat. An exciting endeavor in theory but utterly dull and tiring in practice.

No one trusted anyone with even a single drop of Morley blood here anymore. He had a harder time walking out in the streets at daylight, and the newest bullet in his arm was thanks to some wild and raging old man in the streets with a gun on his hands. Thankfully, Sean was able to drag him off in time. Still, Teague remembers the memory with bitter hatred. Let them spit at him now. He would come out on top in the end.

“You alright, mate?” Sean quietly says. His voice echoes slightly in the dark tunnels, but their small lamp keeps a glow around them. Teague nods wordlessly, and Sean sighs, “Conor and Liam are scouting for new entrances. Saoirse and Ava are trying to get jobs within Dunwall Tower, but the Kaldwin bastards are locking down security. We’ll have to come up with different plans.” Sean hesitates before he blurts out quickly, “Ava’s planning to use her body to get through some of the guards. Saoirse’s considering it too.”

Teague leans forward with a sharp glare and says, “It’ll work.”

Sean blinks at him for a moment before he balks, “Aren’t you worried about them?”

Teague clicks his tongue and readjusts his arm as he says, “We all agreed to come here for one objective. If they choose to do that and it works, then it works. We kill the emperor and go home to a free Morley.”

Sean frowns with disgust but reluctantly concedes, “Alright, do what you will, but I’m going to talk with them to see if there’s a better way.”

Teague shrugs and leaves him alone to his silence. After Sean finishes cleaning his weapons and organizing his pockets, they pack up and follow the winding paths of the tunnels with Teague leading the way. The smell remains disgusting and redolent on the stale air, but after a while, Teague gets used to it. In some areas, the smell is barely traceable at all. It’s only a shame that the smellier areas are the ones that are least trod by other bandits and thieves in Dunwall. None of them compare to Teague’s ability to navigate the tunnels though. He’s been through too many, snuck through too many, and lived through too many to not remember the way each tunnel spirals and coils through the city underground.

Conor, Liam, Sean, Saoirse, Ava, and Teague. The six agents sent into Dunwall to slit Kaldwin’s throat. Conor, Liam, and Saoirse were city folk, born and bred from the bustling ruckus of Morley’s major cities. Sean was from the rolling countryside while Ava was from a smaller town like Teague. Overall, there was little tying them together other than the thread of hope that bound them to each other and the Liberation Army. They were all different: like comparing day to night or twilight to dawn. Frail Ava was softer and more apt to use poison as a killing method compared to strong Saoirse who preferred a blunt hit to the head. Conor liked the feeling of a sword in his hand while Liam relished the ringing shots of a gun. Sean was a creative one, always looking for places to push people at the right times, and so, the drownings and the burnings and the freak accidents were mostly his area of expertise. However, Teague wasn’t quite sure where he lied on the spectrum. One thing was for sure though; he quite enjoyed the prospect and process of planning and strategizing.

Suddenly, Sean lets out a low whistle as he treads ahead of Teague.

“What now?” Teague asks. He sets his thoughts about their motley group aside and realizes that he’s tired and aching. Honestly, he’d just rather fall back on his worn bedroll in their little nook that they’ve carved out beneath the city.

Sean calls back, “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve found.”

Teague sighs and tightens the bandages around his arm before he steps over through the flickering darkness and shadows to where Sean is. Sean holds up his lamp to illuminate an alcove built in the wreckage of a collapsed wall. Stained and tattered purple drapes swoop across the broken stone, and in the center, a rough altar stands with carved bits of what seems to be white, bleached bone. Sean sways on his feet as he stares at the sight, and in a dreamy tone, he says slowly, “What is this? It looks… It looks amazing.”

Teague Martin takes a long, solid moment to just blink at the sheer absurdity of it all. For one, it just seems to be built out of stolen curtains and driftwood. It really doesn’t seem to be anything special, but Sean starts drifting towards the altar and its bone bits. With a sharp tug, Teague yanks Sean back. That seems to be enough to knock out the glazed look in Sean’s eyes, and he coughs and clears his throat.

“What… What was I going to do?” Sean bemusedly asks.

Teague shrugs, “Damned if I know. I bet this is some sort of cult’s work. Nothing more than that. Come on, let’s go back. I don’t want to bother some crazy cultist and get stabbed in the other arm. Considering our luck, _I’ll_ be the one to get stabbed and you’ll be the one to get away scot-free.

When they reach their hiding spot, they spot Saoirse and Ava rounding the corner. Ava’s slight and bird-thin, and she’s poised on her toes. Saoirse, on the other hand, is tough, and she rounds the corner with an arm protectively around Ava. A look of panic barely flickers over Ava’s expression when she sees the shadows of Sean’s and Teague’s figures stretching across the flickering light of their lantern. However, she masks it easily, and if Teague hadn’t spent so much time around her, he barely would have been able to tell. Part of it was simply her personality and the other part of it was the pure nature of the Liberation Army. Once you enlisted, you learned to keep your face blank of anything dangerous, anything vulnerable. All the better to trick Gristol with.

Saoirse lets out a low whistle that echoes down the long stretch of stone between herself and Teague. “Look at what the rats dragged in,” she says, uncaring of the echoes that resound from her voice. Ava taps her on the shoulder as she pinches her lips together in a thin line. Saoirse only shrugs and says, “This part of the tunnels is pretty much unused. Not even criminals or beggars go down this deep.”

Teague arches an eyebrow and jerks his thumb behind him as he says, “Not criminals but crazy people. We found a little alcove built by some cultists or something like that.” He pauses before he chuckles, “Whoever it is, they chose a good location. You won’t be seeing any Overseers around here.”

Ava lets out a small laugh as she says, “Can you imagine the Overseers trying to get through the first layer of tunnels?

“They’d fall into the pits ‘fore they got too close though,” a voice calls out from the dark. Conor’s familiar city accent is shot right through the core of the words, and his face is the first one they see in the flickering lantern light. Liam follows close behind him, and they all gather together now.

They spend their last dregs of oil on a fruitless discussion and a hastily-made plan that everyone knows will not work. Their progress is little; their sacrifices are too heavy. Teague knows that one of the ideas will work, will bring Kaldwin down to his knees and make his head roll across the Tower’s floor. However, that idea costs too much, requires too much blood and life from them. He looks up at Ava, Saoirse, Sean, Liam, Conor. Ava and Saoirse could convince the guards to leave with a light touch, pouted lips, and a dagger hidden beneath their skirts. Liam and Conor could steal along the sides of the Tower and distract the household servants while Sean and Teague sneak towards the main throne room and decapitate Euhorn Kaldwin. But the guarantee of their lives at the end of the plan is zero even with the best of luck. Only the Outsider would be able to save them at that point, and even then, the Abbey’s lingering influence within the Tower still poses a danger to an absent god.

No, there are no more options, no more opportunities. Their mission seems doomed.

Time passes, but their progress does not, just as Teague knows it won’t. He can taste the acrid bitterness, the impatience, in the air, and he wonders when someone will snap. Strangely, it’s Sean. He wanders farther and farther into the tunnels, searching for something that he swears will be the end to all of their machinations. Teague personally hopes that it’s the head of Euhorn Kaldwin, but he’s not particularly optimistic about that. He lets Sean do his own thing, but Saoirse and Conor reprimand Sean constantly.

Finally, Sean asks Teague to meet up with him in a certain section of the tunnels. Sean swears that he’s found something incredible, but Teague’s doubtful. Still, he tracks down the section using his small lantern and the hastily scrawled map that Sean pressed into his hand in the morning. It leads to the same sector of the tunnels where the mysterious shrine was.

Teague knows the stories of the Outsider, but Morley treats the whale god much differently than Gristol. Where Gristol fears and burns, Morley treads carefully past. There are still sailors along the Morleyan coast that offer up a dash of salt to the sea and a whistled tune to act as a prayer for the Outsider. They know what gods can do. Gristol has forgotten and buried its fears under a veneer of religion. Teague finds the dichotomy interesting; even though they fear, some Gristolians still cling onto the forbidden god as if it were their own life. Fascinating, truly, to see how religion warped the minds of many.

He enters the shrine with silent footsteps. There’s no one inside, but the curtains are still purple and dust still lies along the edges of the shrine. But the floor directly in front of the shrine is clear of any dust. Someone’s been here frequently enough to keep the dust motes from piling up. The shard of bone is still on the altar, but it’s stained rust-red. Teague squints at it and wonders why anyone would think blood would summon a god. The Outsider is a god of the sea, a god of the whales, and a god of the unknown. Nothing so mundane as blood would really help in that case.

He sits down in the clear area and waits for Sean. Minutes tick by, but he doesn’t come. Teague pulls out a battered watch he pilfered from the streets to check the time. It’s night time; Sean should be here soon. More minutes tick by, and reluctantly, Teague prepares himself to settle down for the night. If he’s not here when Sean comes by, Sean will most likely be furious with him. He pulls down a worn curtain and shakes off the dust outside the altar. Teague still coughs amidst the clouds that plume up from the folds of old fabric, but it’s decently thick and warm. He lays it down on the cold floor and wraps himself up in the excess.

Sleep comes quickly to him in that small alcove: faster than he’s ever known before. Sooner than later, he finds himself wrapped up in dreams.

“Interesting,” a voice suddenly says, the edges curling with absolute amusement. “You constantly pass by and yet, this is the first time you have stopped.”

Teague opens his eyes to find himself not in the alcove but in a shimmering, liminal space. He glances back and forth before his gaze narrows in on the gleaming air of the space around him. This isn’t Gristol anymore; this is the Void. He can only think of one god to warp his dream like this. Teague almost groans with disappointment. He was hoping for a dreamless nap. Not this.

“Don’t think too much about it,” Teague snaps back. “I’m here to meet someone and that’s it. I didn’t ask for any dreams or a god to come knocking on the proverbial door.”

“He won’t come. He’s found something else that will take up more of his time than expected,” the voice replies. This time, the words ring with absolute certainty as a man dressed with shadow steps out neatly into the swirling void around Teague. The Void wavers before settling into blurry forms of what Teague instinctively knows to be his hometown from Morley. He swears he can smell the faint, hazy scents of wild lavender, sage, and other herbs from his mother’s small garden. Then, the lines change to Alba, Caulkenny, Fraeport, and finally, the capital of Wynnedown. In each vision, Teague swears that he can hear the sounds of Morley folk songs and the ever-present thrum of words that seem to shift and spin in every crowd. The scent of sea salt and smooth amber whiskey is sweet on the air, different than the scent of grime and burnt whale oil that Dunwall carries.

Teague grits his teeth and tries to keep his bearings about him. If he focuses hard enough, he can imagine that his feet are still on the clammy, dank stones of the sewers, and the scents are of shit and dried piss instead of whiskey. There’s still a distinct tang of sea salt on the air though, and Teague shuts his eyes to block out the vision of Morley. The sight stings his heart more than he expects, and he longs for a home that cannot take him until he sets it free.

“You could,” the Outsider points out. “You know very well what it would take to kill Euhorn Kaldwin.”

“I’m selfish,” Teague returns. “I’d do whatever it takes to free my country, but I’d also like to stay alive to see my country free and independent.”

“You’re not saying all of your reasons,” the god observes.

Teague laughs, and the sound feels bitter and rough on his tongue. “If you know that, then you must know already. No need to waste time asking me if you already know, god. And if you don’t know, then you’re not much of a god, are you?”

“Strange,” the god with otter-black eyes tells him. “Strange indeed to find a man who laughs in the face of a god.” He begins to pace around Teague ever so slowly, and Teague does not cede a single inch of the metaphorical ground he has. Instead, he stares straight forward and refuses to follow the god with his eyes.

“I have nothing to fear,” Teague rasps with a hint of his telltale smirk playing around his lips. “What could a whale god do to me?”

“Many things,” the Outsider replies smoothly. He stops in front of Teague to bend over him. He brushes his cold, pale fingertips down Teague’s cheek and traces the lines of his veins on his throat. “Listen to that heartbeat,” he croons as he presses down at the pulse. Teague’s heart races faster, and he can hear the blood rushing in his ears too. “If you weren’t scared, would your heart be beating like this?”

“I’d be dead if my heart wasn’t beating,” Teague flatly says. “What, do you want me to be dead?”

The Outsider glances up and meets his gaze before he lifts his fingers off the fluttering pulse point and says, “No, that would eliminate my source of entertainment. There aren’t many to be had here.”

“Of course, entertainment,” Teague tosses back. He can feel his heart rate accelerate, and he curses his fallible, mortal heart for it. “I never would have thought to search for entertainment in the depths of a city sewer.”

The Outsider hums, low and soft, almost like whale song, and the sound makes Teague unwillingly sway on his feet. It’s the sound that he heard in that journey across the seas to this blasted city. The whale song makes him miss Morley and the ship that could take him back _home_ , but Teague marshals his thoughts firmly in his head. The Outsider cocks his head and stares at Teague with another damn smirk curling around his colorless lips. “Once upon a time,” he slowly says, still in rhythm with the unsung whale song. “These tunnels were something more. Now, they are filled with the refuse of countless years, history lying forgotten underneath. That always seems to happen no matter what the country or who the people are.”

“That’s the nature of time, god-fool,” Teague says. When he says _god-fool_ , the Outsider stiffens, and Teague catches a glimpse of something shaking, flickering, morphing along the edges of the god’s outline. There’s something eldritch about that makes him inadvertently shiver, and the Outsider pins him with a darker gaze than before. Teague, however, soldiers on, “People repeat themselves over and over again. Habits are harder to break than they are to gain. Time and history are no different, and in the end, man only breaks himself down. No need for divinity and magic; mankind is disgusting and depraved enough to do it to themselves.” He viciously smiles and gestures to himself, “And I am no exception. If you have nothing more or nothing better to say, Outsider, then let me return to my miserable life.”

“Yet you cling onto hopes and dreams and ideals, Teague Martin. Your words discredit your actions, and your bravado doesn’t hide what you truly think. However, your honesty is refreshing,” the Outsider muses. “I like you, Teague Martin. More than just another ripple in the pond, you are.” He resumes pacing around Teague, and the Void starts to warp beneath his feet.

“Ripple?” Teague echoes. He narrows his eyes and says, “If I am to be a ripple, then I plan to become a wave.”

“A wave?” the Outsider chortles. “Such dreams, such aspiration, such _ambition_. The sea breaks those down, you know.” The sound of waves crashing against an unseen shore intensify in the dim background, and the scents of salt and rotting kelp grow stronger in the space between the god and the mortal.

“But the waves are part of the sea, and the sea doesn’t not ruin itself,” Teague counters.

“Interesting,” the Outsider muses. “Such an interesting, trapped soul you have, Teague Martin.” He returns to face Teague face-on and strokes a single index finger down the middle of Teague’s face. “Then I shall see you again later on. Congratulations on attracting my attention, Morley boy.”

When Teague opens his eyes again, he finds himself back in the shrine. But this time, he hears a rough scratching and hoarse breathing that echoes along the long tunnels of the sewers. He shakes off the mugginess that clouds his head and draws his blade, carefully advancing out. A noise behind Teague startles him and he whirls around, ready to pierce whatever comes with his blade. His eyes dilate when he sees Sean, swaying on his feet. “Sean!” he calls out with desperation tinging his voice. “What’s wrong?” He hurries over, grip faltering on his blade, and kneels beside Sean.

Sean leans into him with his shoulders shaking. Blood pours from a series of wounds, and when Teague examines them, they’re puncture wounds in circles all over Sean’s flesh. The rest are simple blade wounds. He narrows his eyes at them and _knows._ The Overseers’ dogs. But what had Sean done to attract the attention of the Overseers? He raises his head to glance back at the small alcove in the wall, and the purple of the curtains flickers back at him. A sinking feeling begins to grow at the pit of his heart, and Teague bends down closer to Sean to hear his rasping voice.

“I got some of the Void, Teague,” Sean hoarsely says. A gruesome smile splits his lips as he continues, “We could tear apart this wretched city with it.” He opens his clenched fist up to reveal numerous chips of bone that are inscribed with symbols that Teague doesn’t understand. The sinking feeling turns cold, and Teague glances up to see a spectre of the Outsider standing behind Sean. The black-eyed bastard still has that smug smirk on his face, and Teague tears his gaze away to look at Sean.

“We could have _taken_ this city, taken it _all,_ and plunged it into the sea,” Sean blubbers. He resumes his white-knuckled grip on his bone charms and says, “Let the seawater take this place, and let the whales swallow Dunwall whole.” With his honor, he grabs tightly onto Teague’s coat and shakes him with the last dregs of his energy. “Listen to me,” he urgently says. His voice now sounds wet with the sound of bubbling blood from his throat, and he chokes on it before he swallows his blood down. “Listen. You’ve seen the shrine. Come on, let’s try to find more bone charms, more shrines. Do you think it’ll take bodies to activate one? Let’s carve more. Let’s carve this whole city up, let’s —”

Teague looks into Sean’s eyes and finds only depraved madness left. Gone are the dancing sparks of joy, the intelligent shine in them. There’s nothing left but dilated pupils blown wide with a sickening and inhuman sentiment. There’s no more Sean in the body that’s before Teague. Reluctantly, he brings his blade hand up and murmurs, “Very well, Sean, let us go see your precious Outsider.” Sean’s eyes light up with joy, but before he can say anything more, Teague stabs him from behind with his blade. He watches, frozen in his place, as betrayal etches through Sean’s face and then fades in favor of lifeless impassivity. Teague slowly gets up and wipes his dirty blade on the back of Sean’s dirty blouse.

The Outsider remains standing where he was, and he lifts up a ghostly hand to beckon him closer. Teague glares at him and refuses to give him one more iota of attention. Instead, he sheathes his blade and hoists Sean’s limp body in his arms. “Very well,” he hears the Outsider murmur.

A soft bellow of whalesong echoes in the distance, and before the sound fades away entirely, Teague hears the sound of a thousand pattering footsteps all coming towards him. He glances around and almost drops Sean’s body out of sheer shock. A veritable _sea_ of rats comes pouring down the sewer tunnels and cascades past them, pulling on Sean’s body. Teague grits his teeth and tries to hold on even tighter to Sean’s body despite the sensation of thousands of cold rat feet and slimy tails slithering across his body and exposed skin. The rats tug and tug and _tug_ with a force that rivals the pull of the tides themselves, and eventually, Teague loses Sean to the deepest shadows. There is nothing left behind except for a tattered scrap of Sean’s blouse in Teague’s left hand and the whale god, still standing there in his spectral glory.

Teague shuts his eyes tight and whispers an old Morley prayer, a prayer for the pagan gods of the high winds and plains, for Sean. He folds the scrap of fabric as neatly as he can and tucks it into his pocket. Just before he leaves, he spots the bone charm on the floor. The small chip of white gleams despite the dim light and dark shadows, and when he picks it up, he hears the Outsider shift slightly: the scuff of a foot against stone or perhaps the slip of fabric against skin. Teague drops it back down to the floor and uses his heel to grind the bone charm into the stone. He takes a small step back before he draws his blade and brings it harshly down, cracking the bone in half. He brings his heel back to grind it all into powdery white dust. When he looks up, the Outsider is there, looking intently at him. Teague gives him the most vicious glare he can muster up before he turns on his heel and storms off to inform the others of Sean’s death.

He makes up details with ease, flows from one lie to the next, and no one questions him. Teague wonders how he’s gotten this good at lying, especially to a group who knows his talent for bending the truth. Everyone grieves in their own way whether it be Ava openly weeping or Conor’s shoulders shaking with the effort to hold back a sob. Teague feels empty inside, and he sits there, impassive and stoic and quiet. Instead, he folds the last remaining piece of Sean he has in his hand, over and over again.

Time passes once more, and the loss of one of their own still echoes within the group. They begin to splinter off. No one calls for group meetings and discussions anymore other than the cursory debriefing that they have every other week. Teague wanders farther away from the sewers; he can’t bear to stay down there any longer now. He finally finds work in a whale oil distillery. It’s mindless labor, and his thoughts wander over to the Outsider as he renders the flesh of whales away from their cavernous bones. It feels almost sacrilegious to strip the magnificent creatures of their flesh and to drain them of their oil, but then again, sacrilege has never bothered Teague. In fact, he assumes that he himself is committing sacrilege both by coming into contact with the Outsider and by participating in the systematic hunting of whales.

So, by day, he commits sacrilege on both ends and when the sun sets, he goes back to a miserably small hovel of an apartment with whale (god) blood stained on his clothes and skin. Sometimes, Liam and Conor are there. Sometimes, they are not. No matter who or what comes, Teague Martin simply sleeps and he _dreams_.

The Outsider is always there at night, waiting at the edges of his sleep-haze and flooding his dreams with the scent of the tides. Teague could care less about the way the Outsider haunts his dreams. In a way, his presence makes Teague’s dreams even more vivid and bright, and for that, Teague is somewhat grateful. The dreamscapes he sees are sharp in all of their brilliant colors, and he sees his beloved Morley more beautiful than what it currently is. However, the Outsider is always in a corner, a darker alley, or in the last seat in one of Morley’s dim-lit bars. He brings the scent of the sea with him, and Teague wakes up with the memory of that scent. The main issue that Teague has with the Outsider’s frequent visits is the god’s presence rather than anything else. After he laid Sean to rest, the thought of dealing with the Outsider felt even more unappealing. A waste of his time if anything else. Still, his dreams are brighter, and they give him a closer and more realistic glimpse of Morley from Dunwall than he could ever hope to obtain from his hazy memories. Morley seems like an eternity away, but the dreams make it seem like he’s back if only for a night.

“Your dreams are ordinary,” the Outsider finally comments as Teague sits down on a worn bar stool in a pub that he knew well. It was a pub that his uncle used to frequent in another city, and Teague took up the habit when he moved out of his hometown and into the city. Normally, there would be people gathered in clusters, and one musician would play the fiddle in another corner. There’s no one else except for the Outsider and Teague, and the only music he can hear is the faint sound of whale song.

Teague only shrugs in response, and instead, he focuses on swirling the amber-colored alcohol in his glass. It looks far nicer than what he remembers it to be, but he lifts the glass and downs it in one gulp. It tastes like salt water. He makes a face and glances at the Outsider. “Then why are you constantly bothering me?” he grouses. “You’re a god, surely you have better things to do with your time than to bother me.”

The Outsider blinks once and then twice with unnerving slowness, and that only makes the endless black of his eyes seem darker and more inhuman. “I may, I may not,” he says obliquely. “Your dreams are ordinary, but you are not an ordinary man.”

“I’m human like the rest of them,” Teague tosses back.

“Yet you have no inhibition, no fear of the unknown,” the Outsider quietly replies. “You would laugh in the face of a god and continue on. Others are not so careless or reckless, and yet, you are neither careless nor reckless.”

“A god means nothing to me,” Teague says, dark and honest. “What would a god do to me compared to the men of the world? You’ll find that the real monsters are just members of mankind, whale god.”

The Outsider examines him and sits down on the bar stool next to Teague. “You’re not wrong,” he comments lightly. “Perhaps that is why you are more of an enigma than you think you are. Tell me, what do you think of me then?”

Teague traces the rim of his glass with his index finger as he contemplates the question. He looks up and replies frankly, “You’re nothing more than a lonely god, and you don’t even wear godhood well.” The Outsider’s eyes widen and then blink once more at that, but it’s startlingly and surprisingly human with its quickness and abruptness. Teague laughs a low and rumbling laugh when he sees how he’s put the Outsider off-guard, and he comments, “Didn’t expect that, did you?”

The god grudgingly replies, “No, I did not.”

Teague shakes his head and drums his fingers on the worn bar counter as he explains, “The way you talk, the way you always look for entertainment, that isn’t the mark of a god. That’s the mark of boredom. Shouldn’t gods have more things to preoccupy their time? You seem more like someone who’s tired of immortality. Gods who were always gods should be used to godhood. You? You’re more like someone who got godhood foisted on him.”

The Outsider narrows his eyes at Teague and says in a dangerous tone, “Careful. You assume too much.”

“Do I?” Teague shoots back. “I’d say I’m not. Divinity is nothing without humanity. You’re more like a god who has too much humanity shot into him. Boredom is human, whale god, and faith is fickle. I don’t care about what your opinion of me is, and I gave you my own. That’s that.” He pushes himself away from the bar counter, and the legs of his stool screeches against the floor. No matter; it’s only a dream after all. He starts heading towards the door of the bar, but the Outsider clears his throat loudly.

“I appreciated this conversation,” the whale god says quietly. The words hang in the air for a moment too long, and Teague debates on whether or not to turn around and look back on the Outsider. And he has to admit, this is the longest conversation he’s had with a non-member of his little Morley cadre.

“As did I,” Teague finally decides to reply. He doesn’t turn around though, and when he opens the door to leave, he finds himself waking up to see the cold, dreary grey stones of the Dunwall tunnels.

Saoirse and Ava have darker circles beneath their eyes when he sees them. It’s rare to see them at all now that they’re working in Dunwall Tower. Their positions have grown steady with the consistent quality of their work, and they have regular shifts and salaries. Even workers’ benefits which Teague envies. Their hands are streaked with callouses from hard work and not callouses from the hilt of a knife or the handle of a gun. Conor and Liam look exhausted from their constant traverses across Gristol. Teague simply has blood and oil stains constantly dotting his clothes and skins.

“Sometimes, I can’t even find you properly. Working all day in the factory instead of searching like us, huh?” Conor grumbles. “Good-for-nothing bastard.”

“I might be a bastard, but at least I’m a Morleyan bastard,” Teague says in the middle of a yawn.

“Damn right,” Liam chuckles. “A Morleyan bastard’s better than a Gristolian any day.”

A smile quietly grows on Ava’s face, and it’s good to see that. Teague rubs the sleep from his eyes and wonders when the smile disappeared off Ava’s face. Grey Dunwall and colorless Gristol have taken the Morley cheer out of her face, and no matter what Saoirse does, it never returns back to its full color. Teague wants to ask if anyone’s found more information, but he doesn’t want to ruin the rare mood.

Saoirse hands him a dented metal cup full of hot tea, and Teague widens his eyes. She gives him a wink and says, “I get paid now. I can buy some matches instead of having to steal them from that pig of a merchant in that one street.”

“Better you steal them,” Conor chortles. “He could use some stealing to thin down his business. It’s not like he’s miserably poor and it’s not like he’s one of us anyways. All of his purse will go to Kaldwin from taxes anyways.”

“And Kaldwin gives me some of that money for maid’s work,” Saoirse says after she clicks her tongue reprovingly at him. “And speaking of Kaldwin, I found out that there are some openings in the royal guard and the Abbey for training. You lot could join them to get closer to Kaldwin. It’s still hard to pin down an exact pattern for his movements, but we can get it.”

Ava sighs and says, “I got the information from a guard in the night patrols.”

Saoirse’s eyes flash and she says dangerously, “You didn’t tell me that the information was from a guard.”

“I didn’t want you to worry while we were still at the Tower,” Ava says despondently. She folds her hands together and fidgets as she says, “He didn’t ask for anything else in return. No touches, no nights, nothing. I don’t owe him anything. It was just a question. It’s not what you think it’s like, Saoirse.”

“But he’ll want something in the end,” Saoirse warns. “Men always do.” She glances up and slowly rakes her gaze over Conor, Liam, and finally, Teague. “Even you,” she says darkly. “Even you lot. All men are the same at the core.”

“That’s enough, Saoirse,” Ava sharply says.

Teague shrugs, “You’re not wrong, Saoirse. Everyone is always and fundamentally cruel.”

“Of _course_ it’s coming from Teague,” Liam scoffs. “He’s the cruelest one out of all of us.”

“Pragmatic,” Teague corrects. “I’m the most pragmatic out of all you. Saoirse runs pretty close though.”

They all laugh at that and hold their dented cans and cups of tea in their little circle. The rest of the conversation filters through Teague’s ears slowly, but Teague’s mind is already racing towards the possibilities this opens up. He was never one to care too much about religion, but he never underestimated the sheer force of faith. In fact, faith drove people to do more than empires ever could. No, Teague will not underestimate this now. The Abbey seems to open up more possibilities than it closes.

After he swallows down his meager breakfast, he bids goodbye to his friends and takes sharp turns in the twisting caverns of the tunnels to reach the Abbey. He takes the time to break into an empty house and borrows the bathroom to make himself look more presentable. Teague wants to snatch up a spare piece of bread, but common sense tells him that doing so would be pushing the edge. He carefully leaves everything as it was and heads towards the Abbey feeling more refreshed and clean than he’s ever felt before in Dunwall.

The Abbey pays no attention to the blood on his hands and draws him into their fold with speed. They do not take his blade from him and instead, nod with approval. _He’ll make a good one, even if he’s a Morleyan bastard,_ they murmur. _The Everyman turns a blind eye to nationality, and one more man against the Outsider means more._

He expects the Outsider to be displeased. This is nothing more than betrayal in the end in terms of his allegiance (if it ever existed) to the Outsider. But Teague rationalizes that food is food and warmth is warmth. His place in the Abbey affords him a more comfortable place to live, warm food in his belly, education during the day, and a prime spot to observe Kaldwin’s activities. Instead, the Outsider seems intrigued by Teague’s choice.

Teague uses his talents to his maximum benefit. His silvertongue and enchanting little lie about his backstory wins him a better room and extra privileges. His hard work and extra night shifts curries him favor with the higher-ups. He gets better clothes, better food, and more leeway. _More freedom_ , he thinks with glee. He’s careful to keep his head down and his expression demure though. The Overseer’s outfit may be chafing, and the dogs constantly remind me of the puncture wounds lacing through Sean’s skin. But it is a place where he is safe for now.

Then, the Outsider grows bored with the passage of time. As he always does. Teague _expects_ it to happen any time soon.

“You are wasted,” the Outsider says in his low drone of a voice during a dream. His jet-black eyes glint in the ever-present light of the Void as he continues, “Wasted on the Abbey. Always wasted, always thrown away on the shores of Dunwall, far, far away from your dear and lovely home of Morley. Tell me, what would you if I told you of a future where Morley was beaten into subjugation? A future where the Morley Insurrection failed as brightly as it started? A future where you, Teague Martin, was utterly wasted on such a hopeless endeavor, a useless cause?”

Teague grits his teeth and bites his lip in the process. This is the first time that the Outsider has managed to elicit something more than bland curiosity out of it, and with growing irritation, he realizes that the Outsider must be thoroughly enjoying this, more so than any of their half-hearted conversations in dreams past. Now, he tastes iron on his tongue as he snarls back, “Morley lives on. It will always live on, and I am _never wasted_.”

The god laughs, a smug and sharp sound that drenches the edges of the dream with a biting cold. “That is what you try and tell yourself,” he tells Teague. “Ah, what a person you are, Teague Martin, to be set off by a few prods at your sense of freedom.”

“Freedom’s the best thing a man could have,” Teague bites back. “And don’t you go around getting funny ideas about it.”

“Manipulation,” the Outsider hums in response. “is something that you have refined beyond parallel. Is this the reason why you’ve done so? In that case, let me applaud you for your accomplishment.”

With a dull glare, Teague stands up and grabs the god’s wrist. He pulls sharply, yanking the brittle construct that the god has made for this dream. He crushes the Outsider closer to his body and bites a sharp-toothed, bloody kiss out of him to _shut him up._ Strangely, the Outsider’s body grows stronger under his hands, as if the god is funneling more matter — more bone and blood and Void knows what else — for the sheer sake of biting back. The Outsider _returns_ the kiss, even harder and more possessive than Teague initiated. The god snaps his teeth against Teague’s ears and trails bruises down his neck with ease and alarming agility.

When Teague falls back down in reality, he knows that the Outsider has outplayed him at his own game. There are cold beads of sweat on his brow, and when he brushes his fingers over his lips and skin, he can feel them stinging in response.

To be fair, the god isn’t wrong. There is nothing Teague Martin wouldn’t do for freedom, and if that means manipulation, he is glad enough to play the game and _win_. That’s what he did to get in the rebel group for the insurrection; he played off their sense of freedom and desperate hope. That part wasn’t hard since he had that same spark in his heart as well. But when he got to Dunwall, that was when his skills were tested and tried true.

Now, he has to ruefully admit that the Outsider has finally gained his attention. He ignores the fact that if you curve the top stems of two letters in the word, it turns into affection. That will never be his answer. Gods do not love, and he will not love a god.

Then, on one cold day during the Month of Ice, Teague finds himself stationed in the Tower for a day. He’s assigned with following another Overseer around for the monthly benediction, and he carries the heavy incense-holder in his hands as he trails after the Overseer. Overseer Hendricks, if he remembers the name properly.  The cloying scent of the incense clings to him and fills his nose despite his Overseer’s mask, and the sound of Overseer Henricks’s low murmurs almost lulls him to sleep, but the sensation of the Void plucking at his nerves keeps him awake. He cannot afford to lose his position, not here, not now, not ever.

However, he catches a glimpse of something odd out of the corner of his eye. Something that warps along the edge, as if there was a shard of the Void peeking through a shred in the fabric of reality. Teague narrows his eyes and speeds his steps up. The incense smoke sways as he hurries, and then, he sees something else in his peripheral vision. There’s a flash of fabric, a hurry of feet, and someone passes behind him with a familiar gait.

Teague casts an eye towards Overseer Hendricks and finds that they’re circling back to the throne room. He doesn’t know the Tower as well as he should, but he remembers enough from Ava’s hastily drawn maps to know that the passage that the figure was heading down went back to the throne room. He bides his time, waiting and ignoring the Void, as they circle back to the throne.

Euhorn Kaldwin is already there, sitting in his throne, and beside him is his queen and his daughter. The daughter in particular is far more quiet than Teague ever expects. He supposes that in another life, she’d be old enough to be his younger sister. He averts his gaze when Jessamine Kaldwin lifts her surprisingly keen gaze to match his own. The teal of the Kaldwin house as well as their crest emblazon the banners hung around the room, and Overseer Hendricks pauses beneath the largest one to say another benediction. He crooks his finger at Teague to beckon him over, and Teague hastily hurries over to waft more incense smoke over the area.

“Thank you for your blessings, Overseers,” Emperor Kaldwin bellows out in a jovial tone. He gestures to the room and says, “Truly, you ease my heart when it comes to religious matters like this.”

“As it should,” Overseer Hendricks coolly returns. He moves over to the center of the room and starts droning. Teague only shuffles after him all while keeping an eye out for any abnormalities. Sure enough, a portrait starts shimmering, and Teague can feel a gaze boring into the back of his neck. Then, he glimpses a flash of metal, sharpened and whetted to a honed edge.

A guard’s body falls to the ground with a bloody squelch.

The empress screams, high and loud, while the little princess stares at the body with wide eyes. Everyone explodes into motion, but Teague finds himself frozen on the spot. Guards rush to protect the empress while Overseer Hendricks draws his blade with a snarl. Another lithe figure bursts out behind the curtains and dispatches two guards near Euhorn Kaldwin with alarming agility. Their motions are incredibly swift, and they move with a grace that Teague _recognizes_.

One is Conor who ducks out of the way of a swinging blade and raises a small pistol in retaliation. LIam is the other that darts of the way to stab Overseer Hendricks directly in the gut.

More bodies fall, and when the Kaldwins reach the door, they shake the doorknob to no avail. The door must have been locked from the outside. The guards grow desperate, lashing out with strikes that lack in precision. And precision is what Conor and Liam specialize in. Euhorn slams his fists against the door, trying to get it open and trying to alert _someone_ out there for help. Teague only feels heavy and impassive, stonily remaining in place. The incense-holder makes his head spin with its sickly-sweet scent, and the iron tang of freshly spilled blood adds another dimension to the choking atmosphere.

Conor, however, is the first to fall. Overseer Hendricks’s last dying action is to plunge his blade into Conor’s back. Conor falters on his first step, and Liam cries out in anguish. Still, Conor pulls himself off the blade and takes down two more people with him with tottering steps. Blood streams down his clothes before he finally collapses in front of Teague. He doesn’t seem to recognize Teague, and Teague belatedly remembers the metal mask still on his face. He takes a step away from Conor’s body and barely avoids a flash of metal coming in from the right.

At first, he thinks it’s just a regular maid. But what regular maid has a knife? What regular maid moves like a trained assassin? She glances up at him, and through the curtain of wispy hair, he sees Saoirse. She lunges at him once more, and Teague has to use the incense-holder to parry the blow from her knife. They trade blows, and Teague cannot choke out another word from his parched, knotted throat. Finally, she falls from another guard’s blade. That guard claps his back and mutters, “Glad you didn’t die to that Void-crazed bitch.”

Teague finally gets the chance to look around him, and he sees LIam on the floor as well. Ava’s getting cornered with guards advancing on her from every direction. Teague reaches up a shaking hand to pull his mask off, and instantly, Ava’s gaze locks on him with a desperation in her once-soft eyes. “Please,” she whispers. The guards jeer at that, but Teague knows who that word is meant for. Her expression turns pleading and distraught, and he knows that she’s asking for help. He casts his gaze over to Euhorn who has two guards by his side and his family. The empress is nearly hysterical while the child is withdrawn and silent. But the emperor is right there, ready to be stabbed in the abdomen. If Teague plays his cards right, he could even decapitate him. However, Teague would pay the price with his own blood.

He was right all along. The only way to assassinate Euhorn Kaldwin would be to pay every single life they had. Conor, Liam, Ava, Saoirse, and himself. He doesn’t allow himself to think of Sean. But Teague isn’t willing to sacrifice this brief, sputting spark of life he has in his hands. Instead of striding over to Euhorn, he moves toward Ava. Her eyes are so wide now, and she chokes out something in old Morleyan. Words for pagan gods that survived the deluge of the times to turn into traditional proverbs, old benedictions for gods that are not the Everyman. _Outsider save me_ , he hears in the clashing syllables of what was once his home.

 _It is a mercy_ , he rationalizes to himself, just as he did for another friend once upon a time. Teague Martin brings his blade up and brings it down to extinguish the life of someone he once called companion, friend, colleague, soldier.  With the same strike, he cuts down the hopes of the Liberation Army of Morley. _I am helping her_ , his thoughts hastily provide. _A quick death is better than torture in Coldridge._

He knows he’s deluding himself.

Teague returns to his small room in the Abbey dormitories with the cramped bed with the hard mattress. He has no roommate to bother him; his efforts to curry favor have won him at least that. That is why there is no one to see him when he curls up on that hard bed and shuts his eyes tightly. He knows what he’s done. There’s still a quiet part of his mind that screams, _there is more waiting for you in this life!_ He just doesn’t know if it was worth the price he paid for it.

What was a country and what were friends compared to his life?

Sooner or later, he opens his eyes again to see Morley around him. He must have fallen asleep at some point; his limbs feel far more weightless than they ever were in boring, dull reality. He peers at the streets and wonders when they were ever as grey as Dunwall’s. The entire city feels lesser. A shadow crosses over him and he observes the sky. There are dark clouds gathering over the horizon, and a flock of crows passes overhead, flying far, far away from the shore. It’s bittersweet, and the sight of his home feels like a mockery rather than the comfort it’s been. Teague remembers the Outsider’s predictions, and he feels a shiver run down his spine.

When he turns, the whale god is perched on the back of a wooden bench, swinging his legs carelessly against the false wood. Each time his heels hit the bench, the vision of Morley shivers and shakes. The Outsider doesn’t seem as human anymore. There are parts of him that look distinctly off. The black of his hair gleams like whale oil on water, and his cheekbones are too sharp as if they were hewn from marble instead of being made of flesh and bone. His joints are slightly offset, almost crooked, and there’s no sign of pink or red on his skin. There’s only a wide expanse of white: no blood, only like bleached bone. Teague rationally knows that the Outsider is a god; there’s no need for a god to take the shape of a human. But the way the Outsider constructs his appearance now veers straight into the uncanny valley.

It makes something spark inside Teague.

Rage, perhaps, or even desire.

“So,” the Outsider muses. He swings his long legs off the back of the bench and paces towards him, steps smooth and silent like a predator stalking prey. “I thought you valued your country, your freedom.” He gestures to Morley around them, and for a brief moment, everything crystallizes into a perfect rendition of Morley in bright hues. Then, the vision shatters and Teague’s left to stare at the complicated Void. Pieces of Morley are scattered around on distant islands that float up and down in the black chaos, and the Outsider reaches out with cold fingers to nudge Teague’s chin down. “Look at me and only me,” the Outsider croons. “Good, good. Eyes on me. Good boy, Teague Martin, good boy.”

Teague hisses between clenched teeth, and the Outsider smiles. At this distance, Teague can see the glittering specks of _stars_ in the Outsider’s eyes and the serrated points of the god’s teeth. “So deliciously unexpected,” the Outsider continues. He traces his false fingers down Teague’s face and neck as he says, “I honestly expected Euhorn Kaldwin to die, and with him, an entire empire. You could have plunged Gristol into chaos with one fell swoop, won independence for your precious country. Yet, you turned on them. You even killed your companion. What was her name? Ava, was it? Sweet, sweet Ava. She sold her body for information and to sneak your other friends into the Tower, you know. And her sacrifice was worth nothing in the end.”

Teague already knows, and it hurts. It hurts bitterly, but he also knows that he’s far too selfish of a man to ever change what he did. This city sucked the color out of him already, and Teague doesn’t know where his idealism went. The only thing left is the sheer, burning desire for freedom but his instead of a country’s. A country was such a malleable concept too. A single factor could make a country rise or a lone outlier could make it crumble down just as easily. However, outliers die out easily. He’s seen how they’ve been snuffed out like a light through his companions. The loss numbs his heart, and he slumps on the bench.

“So, Teague Martin, what will you do now,” the Outsider hums into his ear. He’s bent down far enough from his perch for his lips to brush against the skin of Teague’s ear.

Suddenly, the hate and loathing and adrenaline all curl deep down in his belly to form a sharp, throbbing _idea._ Before he loses his nerve, Teague grabs the Outsider by the collar and pulls him closer to slam a hard, biting kiss. The Outsider tumbles with his arms flailing, and his lips are cold like the sea. Still, he bites just as hard as Teague if not harder. A moan spills out of Teague’s open mouth, and the Outsider takes thorough advantage of it. Teague’s hips automatically cant up in response to the Outsider’s ministrations, and he murmurs a litany that is an absolute mockery of the verses he has to memorize for the Everyman.

The Outsider smiles darkly when he hears Teague’s nearly feverish words. “The Everyman won’t take kindly to that,” he says.

“Who needs the Everyman when there is already a god in front of me?” Teague pants out. He digs his fingernails in the Outsider’s back and grinds down on him.

The god pulls away and lays one cold finger on his lips to quiet him. “We both know that you would turn on me any moment for your own benefit,” the god croons. “Traitor, betrayal is marked on your bones. Just look at what you did today.”

Teague whines with need, but at the back of his mind, the truth stings. Only a wave of pleasure carries him through the night, and when he wakes up, guilt leaves the same stinging sensation. His libido is satisfied, and that alone serves to coat the guilt with some sort of numbing. And wasn’t that what he wanted to lose in the mind-haze of sex? It made feelings easier to compartmentalize, and he slides the thought away.

He must move on.

Later, he’s called to the Tower once more, not for benedictions but for a medal. Euhorn Kaldwin beams at him as he pins a gleaming medal to the lapel of Teague’s junior Overseer uniform. “Thank you for what you did back then,” the emperor murmurs. He does not make Teague remove his mask, and for that, Teague is grateful. That means the emperor cannot see the way Teague’s lip curls with disgust. There are still rusty stains on the throne room carpet. Some new rugs hide the largest stains, but Teague can still name each and every stain by the body that they came from. Conor’s blood is near the center of the room, Liam’s blood lies near the throne, and Saoirse’s blood is near the northernmost door. Ava’s blood is by the window. The sunlight filters through that exact window: a far better day than that day in terms of weather alone.

There is a new figure beside Kaldwin. It must be the new Royal Protector then. Teague almost laughs. To think that Kaldwin started his reign claiming to be different than the other monarchs in charge of the Isles. Now, he has a pet guard to accompany him wherever he goes, just like Empress Olaskir before him. Well, she still died despite the Royal Protector’s best efforts. Teague privately hopes that this Royal Protector fails spectacularly at his job. If Conor and Liam’s last attempt scared him this badly, then serves him right for underestimating Morley. There’s another new figure that trails after his daughter. Judging from his features, he looked Serkonan. Teague only sighs and takes a step back after Kaldwin’s done pinning the medal on.

“What is your name, junior Overseer?” Kaldwin asks as he clasps Teague’s hand in a hearty handshake.

“Teague Martin, your Imperial Highness.”

He watches as Kaldwin’s face falls at the sound of his voice. There is Morley ingrained in every facet of his voice from the broad vowels to the curling consonants that edge up in different places in comparison to Gristol’s bland, flat accent. The Morleyan brogue burrs up in his throat as he inclines his head and says, “It was an honor, your Imperial Highness.”

Kaldwin falters slightly as he quietly says, “They were your countrymen, were they not?”

“I am from the Abbey of the Everyman now, and the Overseers are my countrymen,” Teague answers evenly. The next words are hard to say, but he chokes them out anyways. “Those people were not my countrymen. They were assassins. I did what had to be done, your Imperial Highness.”

“I see,” Kaldwin murmurs. Sadness tinges his expression as he turns to stare out the window. _Ava’s window_ , Teague can’t help but think. The emperor shakes his head and mutters, “To think that we’re in this state of events… This entire war is a shame, truly.” He glances back at Teague and says, “Perhaps we can still work it out with those rebels. Perhaps we can end this war with less bloodshed.”

Teague knows how many bodies Morley has paid so far for a bitter freedom not yet won. What the emperor means is less bloodshed for _Gristol_. His distaste curdles on his tongue, and he is, once again, grateful for his mask.

His former dreams of brilliance and color return, but this time, they’re not of Morley. Instead, they are more carnal in nature. The Outsider appears in very much the same form as he once did, but sometimes, he remembers to add blood into the body he inhabits. Those nights are marked more with the warmth of a fellow body. Sometimes, the Outsider adds too much bone to his frame, and the bruises of his hard angles remain even after dreams. But regardless, Teague continues to play this game of theirs: a game built out of the body’s desires and a numbness of mind. Teague pays little attention to his motives and focuses more on the actions. He can taste the tang of an ocean breeze and sea salt on the Outsider’s lips, and he forgets that he is kissing _a god_.

Once, the Outsider shapes his dreams into an Abbey. He fashions himself without clothes and perches his body astride the pews. He swings his long legs off the pews and stands as he waits for Teague to come down the aisle.

“You are wasted on the Overseers,” the Outsider observes as he folds his hands behind his back. It’s such a _distracting_ pose on him because Teague knows full well that it is the stance that the Head Overseer takes when he starts to recite the daily Strictures in the morning. Judging from the smirk that curls around the Outsider’s lips, he knows this as well. He’ll never be able to get the image out of his mind now. “So much potential in you, all wasted on a handful of petty prayers that will never be answered,” the Outsider says almost petulantly.

“I am not,” Teague simply returns. “I know what I am, and I know what I deal with.” His eyes flash as he says, “I am never _wasted_.”

They have had this conversation before with the same words and the same sentiments, and the outcome remains the same.bThey lose themselves in their flesh once more. But the memory remains, and Teague has to choke down the sudden, physical jolt down below when he steps into the Abbey the next day.

Time passes quickly in this manner, and suddenly, he realizes that it’s been years since the Morley insurrection. Teague Martin is no longer in his twenties, and he can’t help but admit that he feels the weight of the years on his shoulders. Oh, he’s not _old_ by any means, but he will be. Part of him longs for those young and limber days when he used to traverse the fields of Morley and navigate the tunnels of Dunwall with friends by his side.

Now, there’s no one left he calls a friend. Only colleagues and acquaintances and the god haunting his dreams.

One acquaintance in particular attracts his interest with a proposition. A proposition involving a dead empress and a chance at the throne. A chance at the power that stripped his country away, a way to get redemption for his young failure, and a method to ascend the hierarchy and snatch an ideal in his gloved hands.

He paces on his bedroom floor before he sighs and clicks the dim lamp off. His roommate is already asleep in his small bed, and Teague climbs into his own. The sheets feel rough against his skin, but he pays it no heed as he drifts into the welcome embrace of sleep. But it’s not exactly a welcome embrace he feels when he sleeps. It’s a cold, clammy embrace from arms that never really learned how to imitate the living properly. He looks down at the arms encircling him and comments, “You forgot blood again.”

“Ah,” the Outsider murmurs into his ear. “I remembered the shape correctly though.”

“You have the joints and skin in the right place, yes, congratulations,” Teague drawls. He unloops the Outsider’s arms and pulls out of the embrace to see the god’s face properly. It’s still the same, chiseled shape as ever: otter-black eyes, high cheekbones, sharp teeth. If Teague tilts his head just right, he can see flickers of monstrous features shift and swirl beneath the image of the Outsider’s face. However, as Teague watches, a faint pink discs over the Outsider’s lips first and then to the rest of his face. He assumes it’s the addition of the blood that the god forgot in his simulacrum.

“Congratulations to you as well,” the Outsider replies. “How does it feel to be a fully ordained Overseer in some of the highest ranks of the Abbey?”

Teague pauses, unsure of how to respond. Honestly, the Outsider should know his ambivalent thoughts on the entire matter already. He’s a _god_ , he should be able to read minds. Sure enough, the Outsider’s lips curve into a smile when Teague thinks that. He takes the time to think out his thoughts more forcefully, and the Outsider’s smile grows wider and sharper.

“I’m trained to kill heretics, you know, _your_ kind,” Teague Martin says in the barely empty dream. It’s rather uncharacteristic for the Outsider to be giving him such blank dreams like this. Normally, he sees the brighter colors of his childhood home or the dull, muted colors of Dunwall. More often than not, he sees the dull red of blood staining the sewer tunnels, dripping into the Tower floor, pouring off the flat of his blade. Or the Abbey. The infuriating vision of the Abbey that the Outsider is quickly training into a kink for Teague. Nothing quite like this. This is just his room but devoid of any decorations or any furniture except for his small bed. Teague turns around to see the very thing he meant to hunt, and he steps closer to lay his hands, his fingers, across the expanse of cold, unholy skin. In that moment, Teague can’t help but admire how beautiful heresy was.

The whale god watches him with lidded eyes and lifts a lazy hand to pull the Overseer closer to kiss him. He presses hot and heavy kisses across the Overseer’s skin and leaves purple, blooming marks in his wake. “And what do you intend to do about that?” he inquires in an almost musical tone.

Teague breathes out, “I’m meant to kill you, whale god.” His fingers go skimming down the god’s cheekbone, tracing down his collarbone, and slipping beneath the thin fabric of his shirt to count his ribs. “You could call this blasphemy, sacrilege even,” he says honestly as the fabric fades to nothing beneath his fingertips. He ignores the way his own Overseer uniform dissipates as well.

The Outsider laughs and laughs, his ribcage shaking from the sheer force of it. The call of whales answers him, and Teague Martin, the revolutionary, the traitor, the Overseer, stares at the Outsider without nary a trace of fear on his face. The Outsider cups Teague’s face and slides a hand down his bare back with a fierce accuracy.

“But, my dear,” the god croons. “Blasphemy’s just a taste of freedom.”

“Aye,” Teague Martin replies as he gets a moan out of the god. “That it is. Just another form of freedom.”

Perhaps he will take his acquaintance's offer up. One last show, one last try, one last play in the game of freedom spanning the Empire of the Isles.

 

* * *

 

In the last few moments of his life, Teague Martin realizes that he did indeed play a role in the death of a Kaldwin despite it being the aftermath of it. He chokes on the taste of poison in his mouth and bitterly tries to laugh at the entire scenario in front of him. His beloved god, his heretical little secret, sits on the opposite end of the table with his hands folded demurely over each other on the smooth tablecloth. The cloth itself is marked with spilled alcohol with traces of poison along the edges of the stains, but from the Outsider’s hands, seawater slowly spreads and blooms along the cloth. Pendleton is already dead, and his body slumps limply beside the whale god.

“You knew it had poison,” the god says in a rather matter-of-fact tone, and Teague wants to laugh. Of course he knew. The admiral was fond of habits, and this was one of them. If you were planning on murder, you had to be creative about it. Repeating the same method again was bound to get you caught. This was a fact that was drilled into his mind during those numbingly cold days in the tunnels. The Outsider leans forward and asks, “Then why did you drink it?”

With the last bit of his strength, Teague forces himself to rise up by bracing his forearms against the table. “I die,” he chokes out, blood and poison spilling out over the edge of his lips. “On my own terms. My choice. I die with freedom.”

“That you will,” the god hums. If Teague didn’t know any better, he would say that the Outsider said that with a touch of sadness. But the Outsider holds no sentimental ties. If anything, this is nothing more than a loss of a vaguely entertaining toy. The whale god will find another one soon, and frankly, Teague already knows that Corvo is his new favorite. He slumps back down on the table as the poison takes the last dregs of his life. His body feels heavy, but his mind feels strangely light. Just before reality fades around his consciousness, Teague can feel cold hands tip his face up and cold lips brush against his forehead and then his lips. The taste of the sea floods his mouth, and Teague smiles. Blasphemy truly was nothing more than a taste of freedom. Then, there is nothing but coldness as he falls headfirst into the Void of whalesong and darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> this originally started as a character study on teague martin and quickly turned into a gratuitous martin/outsider fic. thanks for reading, and let me know what your thoughts on it were in the comments!


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